Trying to Figure out Misery Bubblegum

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Tony. I have a few questions about the rules of Misery Bubblegum.

Role and Personality. Random or not?

What are "GM cards?" are they just GM-held play cards.

The GM "either makes a character or takes two GM cards." If they make a character, do they draw cards from that character and also from the phase?

How do you change phase? With the exception of climax and denouement, can the phases basically just be played willy-nilly?

So your character is, at most, a role, a personality, a black-triangle extension and a white-triangle extension. Can you replace your extensions? How? Can other people? How?

Can you play cards that are on your character as part of a conflict? How? It seems you can but I can't figure out the details.

You draw cards for your role and personality as well as your extended trait things, right? You draw Role and Personality for following the hints?

When someone draws one of the purple cards at the bottom of the deck, does that phase start immediately?

yrs--
--Ben

[Ben Lehman]

Oh, also, the card "Rules for Cards 1-9" says that the answers are "often but not always yes or no." All the cards say "yes" or "no." What's up with that?

yrs--
--Ben

[TonyLB]

Role and Personality. Random or not?

Either way.  I've seen people who picked it randomly and then made a character that fit.  At GenCon many people were even picking one deliberately and then one random.

What are "GM cards?" are they just GM-held play cards.

Uh ... I think they're an error.  Too big to pass off as a typo, huh?

The GM "either makes a character or takes two GM cards." If they make a character, do they draw cards from that character and also from the phase?

Oh cripes.  That's probably an errata waiting to happen.  I'll have to go search the rules.  The GM just gets cards off of the phases.

How do you change phase? With the exception of climax and denouement, can the phases basically just be played willy-nilly?

Willy-nilly is precisely how they can be played, yes.

So your character is, at most, a role, a personality, a black-triangle extension and a white-triangle extension. Can you replace your extensions? How?

You can play either of the extensions in a conflict, as you could a card from your hand, so long as you haven't already used them this phase to draw a card.  Each phase, in other words, you can either draw with it or play it, or neither.

Can other people?

No.  Nobody gets to fiddle with your character but you.  They can put opinion cards into your hand, but it's your choice whether to play them or not.

You draw cards for your role and personality as well as your extended trait things, right? You draw Role and Personality for following the hints?

You draw cards for your role when you hit the general word of the role.  So if you believe you've been a punk (even though you don't hit any of the hints) then you can draw a card.  The hints are there in case you draw a blank on what to do.  Other players choose to draw cards for you on your personality when (again) you hit the general word of the personality.  Hints are there because they're something you can do that is likely to encourage other people to give you cards.

When someone draws one of the purple cards at the bottom of the deck, does that phase start immediately?

Yes.  Phase changes, everyone takes their face-down cards (as with any phase change).

[TonyLB]

Oh, also, the card "Rules for Cards 1-9" says that the answers are "often but not always yes or no." All the cards say "yes" or "no." What's up with that?

What's up is that "Yes, no or flee" will fit on the cards, whereas "A question that poses two possibilities and forces a choice between either one of those two possibilities as stated without additional nuance, or else fleeing the scene" does not.  It's not that the cards are saying that for that card you're only allowed to do Yes/No questions.  It's just meant to be a short-hand.

[Ben Lehman]

oooh... Thank you. More things make sense now.

So the GM cannot have a character (other than random side characters)? If so, how do you handle set-up with three players?

yrs--
--Ben

[Paul Czege]

Role and Personality. Random or not?

What are "GM cards?" are they just GM-held play cards.

The GM "either makes a character or takes two GM cards." If they make a character, do they draw cards from that character and also from the phase?

Here's how Tony ran this on Sunday. He made a pile of the Role cards and one of the Personality cards, and he passed them in opposite directions around the table. Each player selected one from each pile. We'd already established that Tony would be the GM.

When I read "GM cards" in this section of the rules, I thought the rules were opening up the possibility of any player being the GM. So, as players are choosing from the Role and Personality cards, one of them decides to be GM, and "takes two GM cards," meaning he takes two Phase cards. But that didn't make sense, because if he only starts with two Phase cards, then how does he get more during the game?

When we played on Sunday, Tony started with all the Phase cards. Of them, he placed "Climax" (I think), a few cards from the bottom of the draw pile, to indicate that we should switch to the Climax Phase just before the draw pile ran out. I don't remember exactly how that happened in play though. I don't think a player drew the Climax card. I think when a player drew the pink card above the Climax card, exposing it at the top of the pile, that Tony just grabbed the exposed purple Climax card and switched us to the Climax Phase.

I also don't know if the placement of the Climax card in the draw pile was a convention variant for a short game, and that perhaps in a regular game the GM holds the Climax card and plays it when it seems appropriate, and you just deplete the draw pile and reshuffle as many times as necessary.

Paul

[TonyLB]

So the GM cannot have a character (other than random side characters)? If so, how do you handle set-up with three players?

Three player games routinely end up as a love triangle.

The GM absolutely is allowed (encouraged even) to play characters that have a place in the story that is nearly as central as that of the player-characters.  He's just not going to directly get cards for playing those characters or exhibiting their personality.  He's going to get cards for using those characters to prod things toward the elements needed in whatever phase the story is currently in.